


Sam's Dream

by justspn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: College Life, Gen, Preseries, Scared Dean, Sick Fic, Sick Sam Winchester, Stanford University, sick!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 18:51:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10169495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justspn/pseuds/justspn
Summary: Sam's at college and gets sick. While he's unconscious he dreams about Dean and wakes up in the hospital to an empty room. No Dean to be seen. Sam regrets ignoring Dean's attempts to reach out to him.





	

Sam unlocked the door to his dorm room and pushed it open. His roommate was still at class, thankfully, so he had the room to himself and could finally lie down and close his eyes for a little bit. He’d had a cold for a little over a week and it was kicking his butt. 

He tossed his backpack under his desk and flopped down on his bed, his long frame hanging over the edge of the mattress. His head was pounding and he had chills that were making him shiver. He kicked off his sneakers and crawled under his blankets. He had an awful headache and his neck was stiff from sitting in class all day.   
 He closed his eyes and felt his body sink into the mattress. Before long he was dreaming about being back on the road with John and Dean, something he dreamt about more and more often as he finished his first year at Stanford. 

XXXXX

“Huh?” Sam asked, jerking himself upright in his bed.

“I asked if you’re alright man. You look like shit.” Sam’s roommate, Todd, said as he threw his backpack on the floor by his desk.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just tired apparently.” Sam said, rubbing his neck. It was really stiff and his headache hadn’t lessened any like he thought it would by sleeping. Maybe he needed some food.

“Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep. I’m gonna go get some dinner.” Todd said. 

“I’ll come with you.” Sam said, standing up. The room spun for a second and he had to steady himself on his dresser.

“You sure you’re okay? You really don’t look good.” Todd questioned. “I can walk you to the clinic if you want.” 

“No, I’ll be okay after I eat something.” Sam said.

They made the trek across campus to the good dining hall together, Sam listening while Todd went on and on about what he did with mold spores in biology lab earlier that day. 

The sun was setting in the distance and the slanting light was shining right in Sam’s eyes, making his headache 100 times worse. He rubbed his eyes and clenched his jaw as they walked the last 100 yards to the dining hall. He saw Todd give him a concerned look out of the corner of his eye.

“Really, I’m fine.” Sam said as they walked up the steps to the building. 

“Whatever you say man.” Todd said. They went their separate ways as they decided what to have for dinner and then met up on the other side of the cafeteria. Sam went to an empty table and sat down, ready to eat his spaghetti and get rid of his headache. He also got a big glass of water, thinking maybe he was dehydrated. 

“So I was thinking this weekend we could head out to the beach with some of the guys I’ve been hanging with lately. You’re friends with them, right?” Todd asked, shoveling fries into his mouth. Suddenly Sam wasn’t so hungry anymore. He sipped at his water and nodded to Todd, keeping his eyes down on the napkin dispenser. Todd kept talking but all Sam could hear was static, and his vision blacked out. He was suddenly back in his dream, sitting in a diner with Dean and John. They were arguing about whatever the hunt was about, something to do with a nest. 

“Seriously dude, you’re sick. Let’s go back to our room.” Todd said, waving a hand in front of Sam’s eyes. Sam jumped and looked up at him, confused. He had just been with Dean and John a second ago. He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. 

“Yeah, maybe I need to go back to sleep.” Sam said. He felt very strange. 

Todd stayed close to Sam’s side as they walked back to the dorm, like he was afraid Sam might pass out. Finally they reached the door to the dorm building and made their way up two flights of stairs. 

“So what’s up?” Todd asked, unlocking the door as Sam stood leaning heavily against the wall. 

“What do you mean?” Sam asked. He really just wanted to go to bed. 

“What’s wrong? Should I go get my car and drive you to the hospital?” 

“No, I’m okay. I feel weird but I think it’ll go away.” Sam said sitting on his bed. He laid down and pulled the blankets over himself. “I have a killer headache and my neck is really stiff and I’m queasy. I think I’m just tired.” 

“Okay, but what happened at dinner? You were on a different planet.” Todd probed. 

“That was weird. I don’t have an explanation for that. I was sitting at a diner with my dad and brother instead of you.” Sam said, his eyes drifting shut.

“Okay man. I put your trash can next to your head so try not to puke on the floor if you can help it.” Todd said, looking worriedly at Sam’s slumbering figure. “I’ll be right back.” 

Sam slept while Todd went down the hall to the RA’s room. He knocked quietly and waited for the RA to answer. 

“Hey, what’s up?” the RA, Dillion, asked. 

“My roommate, Sam, is really sick and I’m no doctor but I think it might be meningitis.” Todd explained.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dillion asked. 

“He said he has a headache and his neck is super stiff and he’s nauseous. And at dinner he was on another planet. He said he was sitting at a diner with his family, not at the cafeteria with me. He didn’t hear a word I said until I snapped him out of it.” 

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound good. Is he here?” 

“He’s sleeping.” 

“I’m gonna call the clinic and see what they say we should do.” Dillion slipped on his sneakers and jogged down the hall to the stairwell. 

Todd went back to his room and looked at Sam. He was still sleeping the same way he had been when Todd left. That was good. He paced back and forth in the room, waiting for Dillion to get back. He’d heard horror stories about meningitis from his mom who worked at a hospital as a nurse. Sometime kids didn’t get the right shots and ended up catching it, usually through something they ate. It killed some of them because of the swelling in their brain. 

He looked over at Sam. Should he wake him up? Was it safe for him to sleep? He wasn't sure what to do. He nervously bit at his fingernails before jumping over to his desk. He opened the top drawer and dug around for some change. He ran down the hall to the payphone and called his mom. 

XXXXX

Sam knew he was dreaming, could feel that is body was soundly asleep, but the dream he was having was so realistic. He was back in Lawrence, Kansas, waiting for John to get home from work one day after school. Dean was washing the dishes and Sam was sitting at the table doing his homework. Sam felt anxious, like something bad was going to happen any second. He tapped his pencil on the table nervously, scanning the math problems he was supposed to be answering. All the directions on the page were in a foreign language and he couldn't understand what he was supposed to do. 

“Will you quit with the tapping? Jesus,” Dean snapped, turning around abruptly. Sam stopped his pencil mid tap and looked up at Dean. His face was white as a sheet and his hands were shaking.   “Dean? What’s wrong?” Sam asked, standing up. He felt short in his 12 year old body. He went over to Dean and stood in front of him. 

“Nothing, go do your homework.” Dean said shakily. He was gripping the counter with white knuckles. All of a sudden Dean was on the floor, his body convulsing. Sam dropped to his knees and screamed, trying to hold Dean’s shaking frame still. All it was doing was shaking his own body and making his throat feel raw.

XXXXX 

Todd walked into his room, just finished with the quick conversation he’d had with his mom. He looked over at Sam’s bed and saw that Sam was shaking, almost like he was having a seizure. 

“Sam!” he yelled. “Somebody call 911!” he screamed, knowing there were other people around that could hear him. He grabbed Sam and tipped him on his side in case he threw up, so he wouldn’t choke on the vomit. He shook him trying to wake him up, but nothing would do the trick.

“What’s wrong?” someone asked from the doorway.

“Call 911 now!” Todd yelled to them. They took off running to the payphone. 

“What’s going on?” Dillion asked, coming down the hall. He walked into Sam and Todd’s room. “Shit, what happened? Is someone calling an ambulance?” he asked, panic rising in his throat. 

“Yeah, they should be here soon. There’s a crew right down the street.” Todd said, trying to calm Sam down by rubbing his arm. He was totally helpless in this situation. “He went from sleeping to seizing so fast.” he said. 

“Just hold on, he’ll be fine. I hear the sirens already.” Dillion said, running downstairs to meet the EMT’s at the door. 

XXXXX

 Sam was still holding on to Dean trying to wake him up. What was wrong with him? Where was John? He stopped yelling for a minute when he thought he heard sirens. They were close by, and coming closer. 

All of a sudden there were paramedics in the kitchen and they were loading Dean onto a stretcher, making the shaking stop.

“It’ll be okay buddy, don’t worry. You’re in good hands now.” one of them said to Dean. Sam followed them to the ambulance and climbed in the back with the stretcher and the paramedic that told Dean he’d be okay. 

The whole drive to the hospital no one even looked in Sam’s direction. They seemed to ignore him when he spoke and moved around him without telling him to get out of their way. Sam was confused and scared. Why couldn’t anyone see him? What was wrong with Dean?

At the hospital Sam followed Dean’s stretcher down a long hallway that was lit with ridiculously bright lights, so bright he had to squint. He watched all the doctors swarming around Dean and could hear them talking about what to do. Sam saw them stick an IV in Dean’s arm and felt the prick in his own arm when they put the needle into Dean’s skin. 

All of a sudden everything was quiet and dark. His insides felt cold and soft. He could hear someone saying his name, but couldn’t open his eyes to see who it was. 

XXXXX

The paramedics came running into the room just as Sam stopped seizing. They made quick work loading him onto a stretcher. One of them was telling Sam, “It’ll be okay buddy, don’t worry. You’re in good hands now.” Todd watched as the carried the stretcher down the hall and heard the ambulance drive away, sirens still blasting. 

“Should I call his brother?” Todd asked Dillion. Dillion nodded and Todd frantically searched Sam’s side of the room for an address book or anything that had Dean’s number on it. He finally found a scrap of paper pinned on Sam’s bulletin board and ripped it down, running back to the payphone with another quarter. 

“Hello?” a gruff voice said into the receiver.

“Dean Winchester?” Todd asked nervously. 

“Yeah, who’s this?” Dean asked.

“I’m Todd, Sam’s roommate. Are you around? He got really sick really fast and I wasn’t sure who else to call. You’re the only person he talks about.” 

“Shit, where is he? Which hospital?” Dean asked, panicked. 

“Stanford Health Care. The ambulance just left a minute ago.”

  “Shit, he went in an ambulance?” Dean was already in the Impala, racing towards California. He was only a few hours outside Palo Alto, searching for a nest of vampires in Carson City, Nevada. “Okay, okay. I’m headed to you. It’s about a 4 hour drive, but I think I can cut it down a bit. Call me again if something else happens.” Dean said, hanging up. He stepped harder on the gas pedal and took off towards California. 

XXXXX

Dean screeched into the parking lot at Stanford Health Care and ran in through the double doors. He found Sam’s room number from an older nurse at the front desk and ran to the door. He turned into the room and saw who he guessed was Todd sitting by Sam’s bed. Sam was as pale as Dean had ever seen him and seemed to be sleeping. 

“How is he?” Dean asked, slightly out of breath. He went to the other side of Sam’s bed and grabbed onto his baby brother’s hand. 

“He’ll be alright. They put an IV in him with an antibiotic and they said he’ll be just fine.” Todd said, looking Sam’s brother over. 

Dean felt himself relax a little. He still hated hospitals, even though this didn’t have anything to do with hunting. “What happened?” Dean asked as a doctor walked in. 

“Mr. Winchester?” the doctor asked. Dean nodded and Todd got up and left the room. “It seems that Sam never had his vaccination against bacterial meningitis. He was in rough shape when he came in, but the paramedics saved his life. He’s on a strong antibiotic that will stop the meningitis in it’s tracks, but he’ll be wiped out for awhile.” the doctor said. 

“Meningitis. Doesn’t that swell your brain or paralyze you or something?” Dean asked. He felt lightheaded. 

“It does cause swelling of the brain, but we caught it with Sam before it got to that extent. There may have been a tiny bit of swelling, based on what his roommate said happened before the seizure, but we’ll have to wait until the scans come back before we know for sure. Either way, your brother will be okay.” 

The doctor turned and left the room. Dean sat down in the chair Todd had abandoned. He grabbed Sam’s hand and let out a sigh of relief. The whole ride from Nevada he had been holding his breath and, believe it or not, praying that Sam would be okay. Now he could think straight again. How did Sam miss his vaccine? Dean would have a nice chat with John about that when Dean got back to their motel and John was done drinking himself into darkness. 

XXXXX

Sam groaned and opened his eyes. He was in a hospital bed, but wasn’t sure why. He had just been with Dean in the hospital. He had the worst headache he’d ever had in his life and his mouth was super dry. He looked around him. He was alone. He felt a sudden disappointment that Dean hadn’t somehow known he was in trouble and shown up to be with him. Dean used to always know when Sam was in trouble. Sam closed his eyes again and waited for the tears that had welled up in them to go away. He heard voices in the hallway, one of them Todd’s. The other’s sounded a lot like Dean’s, but he didn’t think Dean knew he was here, in the hospital. 

“Oh, he’s awake. I’ll go sit in the waiting room.” Todd said, peeking into Sam’s room. 

Dean walked into Sam’s room and smiled. “How you doing tiger?” he asked, sitting by Sam’s bed. He grabbed Sam’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

Sam opened his eyes, unable to stop the tears now. “I’ve been better.” he said, wiping his eyes with his free hand. 

“Hey, don’t cry. You’re fine. Doc says you’ll be outta here in no time at all.” Dean said, relieved that Sam seemed to be normal other than the color of his face and the tears slipping down his cheeks. Dean spooned Sam a few ice chips. 

“I was scared that you wouldn’t be here. I’m sorry I haven’t called in so long and that I never answer when you call me. I was just so angry at you guys, I didn’t think I wanted to keep talking to you. But I know that I was just being stupid now.” Sam whispered, crying harder now. “While I was out I dreamt that you were having a seizure and there was nothing I could do about it and I was just sitting there holding onto you but it was too late and then somehow an ambulance showed up and saved you.” 

“Hey, hey, calm down. It was just a dream. I’m fine. You’re fine. But you were probably dreaming about what was happening to you.” Dean said, brushing the tears off Sam’s face. 

“I had a seizure?” Sam asked.

Dean nodded. “Meningitis. You’re lucky the EMT’s got there when they did.” 

“How did I get that? Don’t you have to be vaccinated?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah, somehow you missed it. I’ll have a nice chat with Dad about it when I head back once you’re all better.” Dean said, a bitter look crossing his face. 

“Huh. I thought it felt weird for a cold.” Sam said, sniffling. 

“Yeah, a cold. Right. A cold doesn’t give you a stiff neck and hallucinations dude.” Dean said softly. “You sacred the shit out of everyone in your dorm.” 

Sam smiled and wiped the remaining tears off his cheeks. “I bet I did. They go berserk when anything happens, so this must’ve really been shocking to them. Bunch of 12 year olds.” Sam muttered, closing his eyes. 

“Get some rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.” Dean whispered, running his hand through Sam’s messy hair. 

“Good. Don’t leave again, please.” Sam mumbled. He was drifting to sleep but wanted to tell Dean how much he regretted not speaking to him for so long. Dad, yeah he would keep right on not talking to John, but he needed Dean in his life as much as he needed air or water or food. He couldn’t let them drift apart like that ever again.


End file.
